Some people take care of their health because it suits them and they see numerous advantages in it. But some people worry about their health because they are panicked about getting sick. Admittedly, such people are in the minority, but studies have shown that hypochondria can often lead to various diseases, namely, heart attacks.
It is estimated that around 5-10 percent of humanity has so-called medical anxiety because they are constantly worried about their health. A new study published in the journal BMJ open ironically showed that these are the most likely to experience a heart attack or heart disease. Even 70 percent of them.
They did the study at the University of Bergen and at the Sandviken University Hospital in Norway, where they specifically wanted to prove whether excessive concern for health, hypochondria, actually has a bad effect on health.
They conducted the study for 12 years, on a sample of about 7.000 people whom they followed and who regularly filled out questionnaires about their health and their concerns about it.
At the beginning of the study, about three percent of the subjects had already suffered from some kind of heart disease, including heart attacks, of which six percent were diagnosed with medical anxiety.
In the years that followed and at the end of the study, as many as 70 percent of those who panicked about their health fell ill with heart disease - from mild forms to heart attacks.
This study was able to link the problems brought about by the medical anxiety of hypochondria. It has even been proven that this includes not only the fear of getting sick and certain diseases, but in general a lot of worry in life, and although the final conclusions cannot yet be established with certainty - science will still have a lot to say about it - it is good to know that the connection it still exists.
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